Sweden-Norway July 2025
We arrived in Stockholm for Ming her birthday trip. She had Scandinavia high on her list of places to must visit, so we decided to go for both Stockholm and Oslo since there is a great direct train connecting the city’s. We booked the city box hotel for our stay and we were very surprised by how clean and good the hotel was. There was no window since it goes into a hill, so it was very silent for our stay. On our arrival we walked around in Gamla Stan and wanted to feel the building style of Stockholm. After that we made our way to the royal palace, but since it was late on the day we did not enter yet. We had to settle down and do some groceries. And we found a quick dinner to grab before we went to chill in the hotel and prepare ourself for the next day resting from the travel.
Since we missed it yesterday, today we wanted to see the official royal guard change so we went up early in the morning. After we did see a bit of it we went out the centre a bit and went to the Vasa Museum. This is a old ship from the 17th century they sank on its first voyage in the harbour in 1628. They got the ship from the bottom of the harbour back up and restored the ship in a huge air controlled building, that is open to see and visit now. After we admired the ship we went to Skansen, to see the old traits of living and it is also a little zoo. We got to see many animals and they had a little area from some tropical stuff. But mainly it is about the old traits and style of living. There is a old town with buildings like a pharmacy and skilled workers from back in the old days. It is a great open air museum that is worth a visit when you have the time to go there combined with the Vasa museum. After we are done with Skansen we had a little photo session with the local squirrels, we went out to the centre to find some famous Swedish meatballs.
After breakfast in the cosy shopping street of Götgatan we went out to roam the little streets of Gamla Stan in Stockholm, it was great it had a cozy feeling but also very busy with tourism. It is also great to see how they wanted to cut down on driving in some of the streets that have bigger tourism and food traffic so they did a lot of measures to slow down traffic and send it around. Then we went to the royal palace and bought the full ticket. It gave us access to a set of 6 - 7 exhibitions and to the Riddarholmen Church. So we spend the most of the day walking trough the old halls, dinner rooms, watching guards changing posts and admire all the old art works covering the walls and ceilings. Since we had a dry day we did spend some time outside to enjoy the sun and sat down at the Stockhols Ström.
Our last day in Stockholm before we go to Oslo. Ming wanted to go shopping and I have spotted a offered exhibition in the centre and decided to go there to kill some time. What is Scandinavia without some heavy metal. It was a nice exhibition where they had set pieces of different Scandinavian metal bands and wanted to set the tone to the older bands with bringing the feeling with old bedrooms and costumes. After I spend some time in the exhibition I had to find Ming and she made it two shops far. I joined her for a couple of shops and then went out to find something to do. We found a board game shop with craft beers so decided to go in and play a game of trusted Pandemic before we went out to find dinner.
After a train ride from about 4 hours we arrived in Oslo. Since half of the day was gone becease of travel, we decided to do something close by our hotel. We stayed again in a Citybox hotel since they are cheap and we plan to be out the most of the time. This time we did not struck gold and had a noisy room at the street side. But you cant always have a good luck so went with it. We went down to the Akerhus castle and Military museum to spend some time out before the end of the day. When we were down we found out about the Oslo pass and decided to buy it. I have to say you get good value out of it as it covered all our public transport and museum entrances. It was awesome to see the castle and all the great halls it head. they are a bit strict about picture taking and need a picture pass, so I snugged in some sneaky shots here and there. After this we went to the Front museum where the covered the second world war very well trough the old castle walls. Then we went to a more modern war museum. Since we went very early with the train we decided to find food and call it a day.
Today we went to a little Instagram street Ming has seen and really wanted to go. It is called Telthusbakken, and as it has some old style buildings that are good for selfie’s we did not spend very long on the location, after this we went for a very high rated hotdog stand called Syverkiosken and had a great tasting hotdog and a good talk with the owner. Then it was time to fulfil the art cravings of Ming and headed to the Munch Museum and see the famous installation about the screaming man. After a full 6 floors of modern art and things I do not really understand I spend some time on the top floor to look at a cruise ship arriving in the harbour. After that it was time to fulfil my cravings and I found a Texas barbeque place just outside of the centre. We had a amazing dinner there and went back to the hotel with our bellies filled.
Today is the last day in Oslo and time to do some boat rides. We took the boat to Bygdøy to visit a set of museums. Because we had the Oslo pass the boat ride and the museum’s we visited were all included. After arriving on the second stop of the express boat ride we visited the Kon-Tiki Museet, Frammuseet and Norsk Maritimt Museum. The Kon-Tiki museum was about a set of people who decided to cross the Atlantic on a raft completely self build and we liked the story it told in the museum. The Frammuseet was about a ship used on artic adventures an exploration, they have a full copy of the ship, but because of the size it was hard to get a good picture from it. After that took up most of the day, after we went into the city centre to find some souvenirs to bring home. We can recommend both Stockholm and Oslo after our trip, but limit the time that you spend in the city as you quickly run out of things to do.
